2010 - Examining the Effects of High School Contexts on Postsecondary Enrollment

Attribution: Engberg, Mark E., & Wolniak, Gregory C.
Researchers: Gregory C. WolniakMark E. Engberg
University Affiliation: Loyola University Chicago; University of Chicago
Email: mengber@luc.edu
Research Question:
1) In what ways do student-level characteristics influence the likelihood of enrolling in a 2 or 4-year postsecondary institution versus no enrollment, controlling for differences across school-level measures of the high school context? 2) In what ways do school-level characteristics influence the likelihood of enrolling in a 2 or 4-year postsecondary institution versus no enrollment, controlling for differences in student-level characteristics? 3) Do school-level measures have an effect above and beyond their corresponding student-level measures?
Published: Yes
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Research in Higher Education
Journal Entry: Vol. 51, No. 2, Pp. 132-153
Year: 2010
Findings:
  1. Black students were significantly more likely than white students to attend a 4-year university.
  2. As socioeconomic status (SES)increases, students are significantly more likely to attend a 2 or 4-year college versus not enrolling at any college.
  3. As students highest-level of math taking and high school grade point average increased, so did their likelihoods of attending either a 2- or 4- year college. The effect was stronger for a 4- year college.
  4. As the number of one’s friends attending a 4-year college increased, students were more likely to attend a 4-year institution. The number of friends attending a 2-year college exhibited a negative effect on the likelihood of attending a 4-year institution.
  5. The average socioeconomic status of a high school proved to be a very strong indicator of college enrollment, although the effect was more pronounced for 4-year enrollment.
  6. No effect on college enrollment related to the learning environment. Variables for learning environment included school morale, guidance counselors, and the frequency in which students were exposed to school violence.
  7. The proportion of students at a school where English was their native language decreased students’ likelihood of college attendance.
  8. The results highlight the normative role of high schools in promoting college enrollment, particularly the role of socioeconomics, academic preparation, and access to parent, peer, and college-linking networks.
  9. This study advances the understanding of the secondary-postsecondary nexus and has implications for policies and practices aimed at realizing the current administration’s promise of providing greater access to postsecondary education for all students.
  10. High school context has a significant relationship with attending college.
Scholarship Types: Journal Article Reporting Empirical ResearchKeywords: AccessContextCultural CapitalHuman CapitalPostsecondary EducationRegions: NationalMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: Secondary Survey DataAnalysis Methods: Descriptive StatisticsMultinomial Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models Sampling Frame:High School Graduates
Sampling Types: Nationally RepresentativeAnalysis Units: SchoolStudentData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
  • The authors draw from theories and perspectives centered on the notion that an individual’s behavior is determined and best understood within the context in which the behavior is situated. Their conceptualization is largely shaped by perspectives related to human capital formation, status attainment, and social and cultural resources.
  • Education Longitudinal Survey of 2002. The analytic sample contained 11,940 students from 740 high schools. Applying the panel and school weights resulted in a weighted sample of approximately 2.9 million students from 22,661 schools.
  • The dependent variable for the study is a multinomial measure of postsecondary attendance containing three distinct categories: enrolled in a 2-year institution; enrolled in a 4-yearinstitution; not enrolled in either a 2- or 4-year institution.
  • The independent variables were demographics and socioeconomics, human capital, cultural capital, social capital, school-level variables, institutional characteristics, and learning environment.
  • The first set of variables reflects the various institutional characteristics that define the sector, region, structural diversity, and socioeconomic status of each school’s environment. The authors define sector and region through two sets of dummy variables representing Catholic, other private, and public (referent group) school sectors and suburban, rural, and urban (referent group) regional associations. Structural diversity represents the percentage of minority students at a particular school, which has previously been used to measure the likelihood of interactions across race and the concomitant access to previously unavailable resources. Additionally, the authors included an aggregate measure of the average socioeconomic status of the students attending a particular high school.
  • The authors also included five different measures to capture and explore the effects of the school learning environment on college enrollment. First, the authors constructed a five-item scale measuring the overall morale and emphasis on learning within a particular school. Next, they incorporated two different variables measuring the student teacher and student-guidance counselor ratios. Additionally, the authors included a five-item scale measuring the extent to which schools provide different experiential-based programming, such as community service, internships, job shadowing, and school-based enterprise.
  • Lastly, the authors included a scale comprised of nineteen items reflecting the extent to which students were exposed to school violence, drug abuse, and disorder. Previous research has indicated that the level of exposure to violence during high school can have lasting effects on postsecondary academic performance.
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:Factors related to STEM Readiness
Archives: K-16 STEM Abstracts